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Oct 28, 2012 -- 8:59AM, laforge27 wrote:

So if I tapped my icy manipulator and he responded with crumble , his spell would resolve first and my manipulator would be thwarted?

nope, it's effect is already on the stack waiting to resolve

his Crumble would resolve first and destroy your Manipulator on the field, but the activated ability on the stack waiting to resolve is a different game object and completely unaffected and as such will still do its thing

You need to know two things.

1) Magic is run by a system of priority (it's an imaginary baton that gets passed around and lets players take actions) The player whose turn it is always gets priority first when entering a new step/phase or after a spell or ability resolves.

2) Spells and abilities don't resolve immediately. Players can respond to them. When you have priority, you begin to cast a spell or activate an ability and you pay its costs immediately during the casting/activation. Then you get priority back and may cast/activate something in response to your own spell/ability and repeat as necessary. The spells or abilities you added can't resolve until all players pass priority in sequence and once that happens the top object resolves and the active player gets priority again. So your turn, you get priority first, you activate Icy and tap it for the cost. You then pass and now your opponent can use his Icy, but your Icy is already tapped and its effect is waiting to resolve. He can't tap your Icy because it's already tapped for its cost. Inversely, let's say it was his turn and he passed priority to you and you attempt to tap his Icy. You tap yours and its effect goes on teh stack, you pass, he can now activate his before your effect taps his down.